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2006 - The Year the FSF Reached Out

Posted by Zonk on from the hugs-from-a-penguin dept.

nanday writes "Linux.com is running a story about how the Free Software Foundation has transformed itself into an activist organization in the past year. From the story: 'At the start of 2006, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was largely inward-looking, focused on the GNU Project and high-level strategic concerns such as licensing. Now, without abandoning these issues, the FSF had transformed into an openly activist organization, reaching out to its supporters and encouraging their participation in civic campaigns often designed to enlist non-hackers in their causes. Yet what happened seems to bemuse even FSF employees.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

8 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. It's about time... by jaymzter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've often wondered why the FSF hasn't reached out to the mainstream community before. The ideas and restrictions behind Treacherous Computing, DRM, and the Copyright Raiders should be enough to raise the hackles of any conservatives and libertarians out there. Until mainstream activists realized the dangers pointed out by RMS this will remain an uphill battle.

    As an aside, if the common public are pirates, maybe we should refer to the **AAs as Vikings or Raiders or something. Successively stealing our rights and enforcing their business models..

    --
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    1. Re:It's about time... by daviddennis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... because most people don't understand what the FSF cares about, and it's likely they never will.

      For most people, you shove a DVD into a DVD player and if it works, that's all they need.

      Most of the people who do care are on Slashdot, and so it's easy to think of it as a huge bunch of folks, but I'd say about 1% of the population uses file sharing networks and maybe 2% of the population actually sees the problems with DRM. Now, that's a huge number of people, and a large percentage of the number of people interested in owning music or movies, so it's important to both producers and consumers of entertainment. But it's never going to be the dominant issue for more than a tiny handful of people.

      It's not enough to swing an election, so with politicla issues the RIAA has a huge advantage, and from what I can see, they use it ruthlessly.

      I think the FSF did a very nice job with BadVista.org . The site's very well done. But I think they will mainly be preaching to the choir.

      D

    2. Re:It's about time... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of the people who do care are on Slashdot, and so it's easy to think of it as a huge bunch of folks, but I'd say about 1% of the population uses file sharing networks I think you'd be way off here. Take a look at the people the RIAA is suing; how many of them post on Slashdot, do you think? In my experience, it tends to be my non-geek friends who are more aware of which filesharing network is the place to get which kind of content. Using most of them doesn't require any technical knowledge, just a broadband connection. Mostly, it spreads because someone says 'hey, I found this way to get free songs' and installs it on all of their friends computers. They may have no understanding of the technology, or the legality, but they are still using the systems.
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  2. Re:like me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    For those like me who have heard of the Free Software Foundation, but are not sure who or what they are:


    God, has Slashdot really fallen this far?
  3. Re:like me by WilliamSChips · · Score: 4, Funny

    For those like me who have heard of the Wikipedia, but are not sure who or what they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

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    Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  4. Re:Transformation by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It is an interesting transformation, and one that took people by storm.

    Are you on drugs? The FSF took people by storm? What people would these be? The choir?

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  5. Re:Thank you FSF by grcumb · · Score: 4, Informative

    You guys have helped spread the dream of free access, open source and non-proprietary software to the everyday consumer. No, they haven't. Very few people have moved to open source systems...

    You've got a typo there. Let me fix it for you:

    "Very few people are aware that they have moved to open source systems, such as the Internet and its services, all of which are, philosophically if not literally, part of the Free world that Richard Stallman envisioned lo, these many years ago."

    ...and very few have any desire to, or even knowledge of what they are.

    The first won't happen without the second. The FSF has done a bang-up job educating developers and other geeks, to the extent that the de facto choice these days for developers is between Microsoft and GNU GPL systems and applications. There are other options, but these two dominate.

    Now the FSF seem to believe that, the first battle being won, they've got to reach out to the general public - or should that be GNU/General Public - and continue the fight there. Given your points about general awareness, I think the decision is a wise one. Way to go, FSF!

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  6. Re:I wonder by bfields · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If they weren't an activist organization until this year, what the heck were they the previous twenty four years?

    I think they were concentrated much more on supporting free software development directly.

    That's less of a priority now, I suppose (for the happy reason that lots of other people are spending money on development), so they're concentrating more on politics--something the various companies funding developers may not be able to do.